


Fixed Points

by thesecondseal



Series: Acts of Reclamation [18]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Asexual Character, Cullen X Trevelyan - Freeform, Engagement, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2018-09-06 17:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8761912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: A collection of major life/relationship events in the lives of Cari Trevelyan and Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi, staring with their engagement. <3
I've gotten so many requests for Krem x Cari (whose relationship begins in Acts of Reclamation). In an attempt to organize their works for easy accessibility, I'm going to add copies of some of the post Acts ficlets (like Stanton) here as well as the new pieces I've been working on over on tumblr.





	1. Radiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First frost, apple picking, and a question we all knew the answer to. <3
> 
> This falls not quite two years after their first kiss (the autumn before their second anniversary which is on the Eve of First Day). About a year and a half prior to the events of Trespasser.

Cari and Krem were picking the last of the late apples when he proposed. The first frost of the season was scattered fine and pale over Essa and Cullen’s farm, and the quiet of the morning hung brilliant and glittering around them. Moonlight still trapped in dew, the sun yet a promise behind the rise of the land. They had arrived—the first of so many others—the evening before, ahead of the upcoming holiday. Weeks had passed since they were last together. Krem supposed Essa had given them what time she could for their reunion, but the sun had not long touched the sky before she set them to work.

“It’s my fault,” Cari admitted, stepping into the shelter of his body and reaching up with a kiss to pick an apple that hung low overhead. Her breath fogged between them in the low light, a cloud of white. “She caught me sneaking back from the kitchen with tea this morning.”

Her lips were a whisper against his; Krem tipped her chin up with gentle fingers and kissed her warm and properly. She still tasted sweet from that hastily sipped cup, peppermint and honey, a hint of rose petals. The blend was a Kissing Day favorite from Kirkwall. No one loved it quite as much as she did. He had made certain to have an extra box procured from a merchant in Jader, trusted Essa wouldn’t rat him out. She didn’t know why he wouldn’t simply confess to the shameless indulgence, but she was a fierce keeper of secrets for all that she had none of her own.

“And you asked if there was anything she needed done this morning,” Krem predicted.  

Of course she had. Cari wasn’t the type not to offer and, given how busy the next two days were going to be, Essa couldn’t really afford not to accept.

“You could have stayed abed,” she reminded him, not unkindly. Cari eased down from her toes and carefully dropped the apple in the basket he carried. “Your journey was much more arduous than mine if Bull’s limp and Skinner’s arm are any indication.”

She wasn’t wrong. The job had been a rough one, bloodier than their usual, a mixed band of mercs hired by some anti-mage Orlesian nobles and causing more trouble for the Divine than they should have been. No one ever died pretty, but these had gone down uglier than most. Hate like that was reckless but a powerful fuel. Didn’t much matter who was doing the hating or who was hated, the moment people decided that other people were less than them…

“Hey…” Cari’s palm was soft against his cheek. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to call it all back.”

Krem swallowed roughly. “You didn’t.” He couldn’t remember setting the basket down, nor wrapping her in his arms, but suddenly she was there, breath on his lips, heart beating slow and steady beside his but for the cages of their ribs. “You called me back.”

He kissed her cheek. The world was coarse, sometimes so unbelievably harsh, but she was so much softness above the unyielding faith of her heart. She always smelled cool and floral, violets and frost, roses and ice. When the world burned black and the ground ran thick with crimson, Cari was the silver grace of a new spring morning.

“Do you ever think of giving it up?” she asked quietly, knowing well the answer to a question she had asked before, knowing better still that the asking was a constant reminder that each day he chose for himself the life he led. .

“What?” Krem smiled, nuzzled a kiss to other cheek. “Become a farmer or a templar’s aide? Leave the chief to Grim’s mercies?”

Cari’s breath was a puff of laughter against his jaw. “And what of Krem?”

Krem had never doubted that they did good and needful work, but since the Charger’s joined the Inquisition, he believed that more than ever. Though he thought that one day he might travel less, he liked his life, was thankful for the family he had found.

“Krem,” he said, hands spreading wide across her narrow waist. “Is mostly content with the work.”

He rubbed her jaw with his nose and Cari pressed her cheek to his with a quiet sigh. “More content to come home to you after it,” he added. “I don’t want you worried.”

Her hands clenched slightly against his back, fingertips protesting against his thick quilted vest. After two and half years together, the sentiment wasn’t new. They would always worry for each other and though bittersweet, that gift was precious too.

“But as always, I appreciate your concerns.”

“And you will always have them.”

She spoke so easily of always now. Cari had not initially given her heart without reservation.She had feared their age difference, had thought she could not possibly be enough for him. A sentiment he understood too well. But once done and gladly, she had never wavered, and she was so much more than “enough.”

“I love you.”

Her chin was on his shoulder, the heavy velvet of her gown crushed between them. There was such strength of welcome in her arms that sometimes he floundered in the swells of all that she meant to him.

“I love you,” Cari echoed, a little breathlessly. “So much. I missed you.” Her arms squeezed fast and hard around his waist. “I’m so glad you’re home.””

Home. Krem closed his eyes, his heart caught between prayer and worship at the word. It had been so many years since he had one. For most of the Chargers, home was lost to the past, a bitter memory, tinged sweet among the dregs if they were lucky. Home was also a shadowed taunt from the future. A place for versions of themselves most didn’t expect to live to, old bones and rheumy hands, quiet lonesome days when songs were only memories and the road stretched beyond them, endlessly empty.  Until Cari, Krem had never dared hope for what most meant when they yearned for home, but now he knew that home was not a place. Not completely, perhaps not yet. She traveled often between the Templar stronghold at Clifton, Skyhold, Honnleath, and the cottage Essa had gifted her in Smoke’s Valley. Krem occupied some small space at each as well, but home would always mean nothing more or less than one another’s arms.She turned her face into his neck, feathered a kiss over the leap of his pulse.

“I’m glad to be home.” He never felt as much himself as he did when he held her. “Cari?”

“Hmmm?”

“Have I told you how happy you look this morning?”

She was, in fact, beautiful.  Cari would forever be effortlessly elegant. Her beauty was cool, patrician, enhanced by a lifetime of instilled habit that made her conscious of small details. She had learned early that her looks were a weapon, and while she wasn’t particularly vain about them, she cared for them just as she did her knife blades.

“Do I?” She looked up at him, cheeks flushed with cold and blushing prettily in the soft morning light.

Her hair was swept up in a complicated looking braid. He knew the style was but the work of moments, had lain in bed watching as she sat at the small vanity her fingers pulled quick and nimble through long, dark tresses. There were crystal-studded pins in the braided crown that wrapped around her head, and the end was secured in a coil at the nape of her neck, a velvet ribbon shining Kissing Day crimson. She had a red dress for Kissing Day, but her wardrobe, gifted from so many whom she met and charmed in her travels, were variations on the week’s theme. This morning she wore the color of Arlathan plums, deeper and redder than her favorite shade of violet. There scarf around her neck was new, an early gift from Sera, patterned in reds and purples and greens, hearts and roses and vines that coiled in lovers’ knots.  

“Yes.”

She was so much more than beautiful. She was a stunning, breathless gasp, and if she did not value her looks beyond what securities they garnered those she loved, she had confessed more than once she was pleased that he enjoyed looking at her.

“Radiant,” he added, because if beauty was a tool, then happiness was a gift. One that Cari had never dared take for herself until leaving Ostwick nearly three years ago.

“I suppose I should,” she mused. She touched his cheek again and Krem leaned into the caress, turned his lips into her palm. She made a little sound of pleasure and he kissed her again, lips teasing over an old training scar. “You are…”

He watched her eyes slip closed, holding back the sheen of joyful tears that never ceased to at once break his heart and send it soaring.

“You build such delight in me,” Cari whispered. “You know that, don’t you?”

He did, though damned if he thought he would ever fully understand how. He knew only that he wanted to continue doing so for the rest of his rest.

“Will you marry me, Cari?”

The words were out before he could second guess them, not that he would have beyond the delivery. He had hoped to find her a worthy ring, take her some place special. Ask her sister’s blessing even though he didn’t need it.

“I’m sorry?” Her bottom lip quivered, fingers curling briefly against his cheek. “Did you just—?”

For a moment she hung heavily in his arms, lips parted around her surprise.Krem clung to her, heart beating madly in his chest. Had he just—

“I did,” he admitted.

Her eyes opened wide and round, gaze misted lavender with distant dreams and wonder.

“Will you?” he asked, swallowing around the lump of his own fears. “I’ll—“

He had a hundred vows to give her, would make a thousand more. He would strive always to make her happy, to see that she knew how wonderful she was. How easily and totally loved.

“There is no promise you need make me, Cremisius Aclassi.” Cari lay one finger over his lips, silenced him with gentle pressure and a subtle shake of her head. “Nothing beyond that you will love me. That you will continue to do me the very great honor of allowing me to love you.”

“Always.” Krem whispered the promise against her skin while she stared up at him, tears falling like diamonds shimmering on her cheeks. “Is that a yes then, my lady?”

She found her footing, and somehow she was closer than before, arms around his neck, joy curving the kisses she peppered to his lips.

“It’s a yes.”

The sun rose fully then, gilding the day in gold, setting the birds to singing in ecstasy. Cari’s hair glowed, a halo nearly as bright as her smile and Krem lifted her easily, held tightly to her with both arms as he spun them in a jubilant circle.

“Of course, it’s a yes.”


	2. Just a Swallow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wine tasting prompt for Sera and Cullen (brotp). pre-wedding fluff for Cari x Krem. 1500 words. Sera, Cullen, Essa, the Iron Bull and the Chargers, Josephine, Cari, Krem, and Varric. Yeah…that’s a lot of folks, I hope the mood was achieved in so few words, but this made me laugh…a lot.

“Full of shite you are!”

Sera announced loudly, thin fingers clutching the bottom of a short, stemless wineglass. She stared at Cullen as if he had finally taken complete leave of his senses. Given the vast and varied ways he had tested her faith over the years, he found himself a little surpised that this was what finally lost her.

“Aren’t you?” she asked more quietly.

Her eyes were narrowed in expectant challenge, daring him, begging him. He would have reached out a hand in comfort, but Cullen was quite certain she’d stick something sharp somewhere tender.

“I’m afraid not.” For a moment, Cullen thought Essa had come to his rescue, but her lips her twitching and her eyes were just beginning to crinkle at the corners from repressed mirth. “You’re supposed to spit it out.”

Sera stared at Cullen too long, nose wrinkling. She jerked a nod at Bull, then turned to Essa. Cullen watched in trepidation as some wordless mischief passed back and forth between the two them, silent laughter rebounding from blue eyes to grey, a loop that built until Dagna giggled, high and soaring, from the other end of the tasting counter.

“Pay up,” Sera said, slapping her other hand to the long, oak counter between her and the Iron Bull. Her palm up was up, fingers wiggling greedily. “Told ya Es wasn’t a swallower.”

From the other side of Cullen, Essa choked on her wine. He turned to see her lips tight against her teeth before she slapped one hand over her mouth. Tears filled her eyes at nearly the same rate Cullen could feel all the blood in his body rushing for his face.

“It’s alright, boss.” Bull stared flatly at Sera, made some comment about the verdict still being out before dropping one large palm to Essa’s shoulder. “Just breathe through your nose.”

The order was low and soothing, and Essa’s face was turning an astounding shade of red. Her glance slid past Cullen’s, eyes sparking brighter at the utter devastation she no doubt saw in his face.  She swatted Bull’s hand from her shoulder with a glare, gazed into the dim space beyond the wall of wine casks behind the counter, and fought down her last swallow.

“I fucking hate you,” she cackled, gasping for breath, arms clutching around her ribs as if to keep her laughter somewhat contained. “And for the rec—“

Cullen moved so fast he knocked Sera into the counter. He clapped one hand over Essa’s broad grin, fought every impulse not to cover his face with the other hand. Her cheeks puffed high against his fingers. 

“Oi, Jackboot, easy!” Sera sprawled theatrically, protests and laughter louder even than the hoots of merriment from the Chargers who’d gathered along the long low table at the tasting room’s back wall. Cullen didn’t know what had possessed Cari and Krem to drag their uncivilized lot to a fancy vineyard, but they were paying for it now. All of them.

Cullen most of all.

“Do not answer that,” he said to Essa so severely that she only laughed harder. “Someone pay Sera. Anyone. I don’t care who.”

“Pay up!” Sera crowed. “Confirmed by Cully-Wully. You all heard him.”

She waved her wineglass at the rest of them and the sommelier neatly nipped the empty glass from Sera’s flailings. The woman’s professionalism was not impeccable, but it was impressive. The kind of discipline Cullen had expected but rarely seen even among the Inquisition’s ranks.

“I heard no such thing,” Bull grumbled, muttering as he reached in the pocket of his trousers for a coin.

Dagna’s giggles rose high above Sera’s snorts; Essa’s levity was a vibrating mumble against Cullen’s palm, tears of laughter rolling hotly over his fingers. Behind them chairs scraped across hardwood and coins jingled as the Chargers began tossing soveriegns toward the center of the table.

“This is your fault.”

He glared down the counter at where Cari and Krem stood the picture of pre-wedded bliss. Cari was leaning back against Krem’s chest, and he had both arms around her waist. The open display of affection looked good on them both and Cullen had a mind to tell them so later when their friends weren't discussing his and Essa’s sex life…again.

“It is,” Cari admitted happily.

She and Krem had been hesitant in the beginning, each too damned protective of the other, and understandably so. But those days of hiding were gone, and they were both better for it. Better still for love of each other, the support they would always find among their family and friends.

“Remorseless,” Cullen accused both Cari and Essa.

Beneath his palm, Essa continued to chuckle.

“We are,” Cari agreed with a quiet smile. “It’s a family characteristic.”

Krem’s face was buried in her neck, hiding the laughter Cullen could see shaking his shoulders. Cari’s merriment was more reserved–Cullen thought there might have been a trace of pity in the violet shadows of her gaze–but she was still smiling at him, at all of them, as she raised her glass to the room in unspoken toast.

“Shall I pour the Antivan red next, my lady?” She had long stopped trying to tell them what vintage she was pouring. Only one of them cared.

“Yes, please.” Josephine’s quiet, cultured tone gave nothing of her own humor away, but Cullen rounded on her as well, hand still firm over Essa’s desperate chortles as her and Sera’s laughter caught, infectious and gleeful, rippling through the gathered crowd of their friends.

“Your fault too,” he added sternly, for good measure.

Cari and Krem had chosen—and only the Maker knew why—to get married a fine vineyard outside of Jader. They were indulging Josie with the wedding that Cullen and Essa had denied her. The days ahead promised a grand ceremony, officiated by the Divine herself and attended by all manner of Inquisition ally and foreign dignitary. The celebration, Josie insisted, was greatly needed and Cari had acted as ambassador among the templars and mages as well as the Winter Palace for long enough that her face—as her own—was nearly as recognizable as Essa’s.

“I can only hope,” Josie said primly, dark eyes dancing. “To have contributed in some small way to such a happy occasion.”

Essa’s breath was sharp on Cullen’s knuckles.  She set her glass down with trembling fingers, fell back to the counter, one heel hooking behind his knee making him stumble a step closer. With all the pain the anchor gave her, he hadn’t seen her so happy in months. Cullen wasn’t above playing up his disgruntlement, though there was plenty of genuine embarrassment to pull from.

“If I let you go,” he teased, unable to fully mask his smile. He could see the sommelier standing just behind Essa’s shoulder. She watched the merry crowd with perfect impassivity as she poured scant swallows of wine into over a dozen empty glasses. “Are you going to keep that lovely mouth of yours shut?”

Essa clutched the counter, sagging weakly beneath her levity and pulling him closer, taunting and sweet.

“You know full well she won’t!” Sera snickered, jabbing first Cullen, then Essa in the side.

He did.

Essa nodded slowly—a lie so bold it told its truth instead—and Cullen grinned, moved his hand from her lips to her neck so that he could continue to feel her laughter against his palm.

“Can’t,” Essa gasped, as Sera fell into near immediate guffaws no doubt anticipating Essa’s retaliation. “Can’t—spit—with a closed mouth!”

Bull’s roar of laughter startled the sommelier, but she recovered more quickly than Cullen would have expected. Josie and Dagna’s giggles were bright as harpsong, and  Essa’s cackles turned to brays, spiraled up through the elegant dimness of the room. The room filled with joy, and Cullen joined them, until the raucous din was nearly a thunder, bouncing off the cool sides of heavy oak casks, spinning back to pierce the darkness beyond.

“Maker’s breath!” Cullen sighed heavily. He let his head fall forward, placed a kiss to Essa’s nose when she moved automatically to catch his forehead with hers. To hold and be held, to be utterly present with him in such a glad moment. “You should all be ashamed.”

“Now, Curly,” Varric snickered from the other side of the room. He was seated at a small corner table, parchment and ink before him, quill in hand. “You didn’t really expect more from this group did you?”

No more, Cullen thought. And certainly no less. He cleared his throat, waited for the laughter in the room to diminish enough for him to speak without shouting before he raised his glass to Cari and Krem.

“I wish you both this very joy,” he said, never breaking eye contact with his smiling wife.

“Here, here,” Bull said gruffly, taking his glass from the counter and lifting it high.

“You know.” Sera scowled, taking her own glass from the sommelier and holding it up with a frown. “Not but a swallow in here anyways.”

Cari giggled and Cullen’s grin turned teasing. “And may the Maker preserve you both.”


	3. Song of Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pre-wedding fluff for Cari and Essa. Because family matters...just not always the way we think it does.

“Do you think they’ll come?” Cari asked voice pitched louder than her usual as she stepped up onto the rocky bluff beside Essa.

The wind was fierce so high upon the headland, but warmer from the north, sweet with salt and the seat oats that grew on the beach below. Essa stared north across the shimmering sea, grey eyes as flat as the distant horizon.

“There’s time yet,” she said.

She was favoring her left arm this morning, had the anchor trapped in her fist, the whole tucked close to her side. She reached for Cari with her right, hand outstretched in an offer of affection and solidarity Cari had once feared would never be extended so easily between them. She had always loved her sister, but that wasn’t always enough, and their mother had worked tirelessly to keep them apart.

“Two days,” Cari agreed, taking Essa’s hand, letting her tug her up beside her.

Essa’s arm slipped around her waist, holding her close, and Cari wondered if somehow her nearness on her right balanced the pain on her left.

“Plenty of time,” Essa nodded. “She wouldn’t miss it, you know. Not now with all the pomp and propriety and half the nobles in Orlais coming to wish you well.”

“You mean coming to wish the Herald’s sister well,” Cari teased. “You realize this is the first appearance we’ll be making together as ourselves.”

Essa chuckled. “You’ve been a better Inquisitor than I have, Care. Shame I couldn’t let you keep the title permanently.”

“Yes,” Cari said wryly. “Shame.”

She reached up, caught a wind-tossed lock of Essa’s hair and untangled it from the necklace she wore. The braided leather cord was long and thick, the dragonskin a gift from Bull nearly a year ago, worn smooth now from worry. Essa was oft to fidget with her right hand when the left was bothering her and in the months since that first gifting, stones and charms had been added, interspersed with heavy silverite beads along the bottom curve. 

A single golden bee from Sera hung beside Cullen’s silver coin. A smooth oval of lazurite dangling lowest, a natural depression in the blue stone was perfect for a worrying thumb. A loop of braid was secured around the outer edge of the stone, brown and black, smooth and coarse. The stone was from Cole, the braid from Hope and Ingrid. The beads, alternating in texture and weight, had been forged by Fin and enchanted by Dagna, protections and soothing, glyphs to ease pain where they could. Essa claimed they helped but Cari thought it was more comfort than magic.

Love was ever the most powerful force in Essa’s life, and Cari could not be more grateful.

“I have something for you.”

Cari reached in the pocket of her dress, fingers uncharacteristically clumsy with her nerves. She caught the ratty edge of frayed flannel and dragged it out, offered it to Essa with a skittish glance.

“Is this…?” Essa frowned in confusion, stared down at the thick fringe of purple plaid until her eyes rounded incredulously, grey shifting soft as smoke in the bright morning light. She blinked against the wind. “Is this.. _Bubby_?”

Cari had fashioned the scrap of cotton into a tassel, wrapping the haft in heavy silver wire and fastening a silverite clasp to it. The charm fit easily into the palm of Essa’s hand with room to spare. Ideally it would hang from the bottom center of her necklace, just beside the lazurite pendant.

“Not all of him,” Cari said, cheeks warm.

There wasn’t much left of the baby blanket their grandmother had made for her. Nana Trevelyan had gone to the Maker’s side before Essa and their brother Mathieu was born. Cari remembered her very little, but she knew that she had loved her, and she had dragged Bubby around all through childhood, comfort and warmth when her mother could offer so little of either. By the time she reached adolescence, the quilted flannel was nearly threadbare, barely large enough for the pillow case Cari turned Bubby into. Eventually the yeas left her with two handkerchief-sized squares and a rectangle large enough for the tassel she’d most recently made Essa.

“I have a square here.” Cari pointed to her other pocket. “And I’m going to make a similar necklace for myself out of the other. That is, if you’ve a mind to add this one to yours.”

“You…” Essa’s mouth opened and closed.

She reached up, brushed a lock of windblown hair from her face as she stared. Essa wasn’t often rendered speechless and Cari couldn’t help wondering if she had chosen her gift poorly. 

“Bubby,” she repeated.

“Bubby,” Cari confirmed warily.

Essa covered her mouth with her left hand, never once letting go of the tassel. Cari could feel the fine tremble in her fingers, laughter clutched against her side. The anchor hummed low, threw fractured chartreuse across her face before Essa scowled, dropping her fingers with a wince that ran through her entire body.

“I thought…” Cari swallowed, tried to gather her scattering thoughts as Essa gaped openly at her. She knew not to mention the anchor, Essa had made her promise that Cari wouldn’t let the thing ruin her wedding. “I thought it was different texture than what you have there.”

She nodded to Essa’s necklace. “And I suppose…” Cari faltered.

Essa’s arm was still fast around her waist. She clung tighter yet in the rising silence of Cari’s uncertainty.

“You suppose?” she prompted.

“I suppose,” Cari began again on a briny inhale, chiding herself for her foolishness.

This was Essa, if there was anyone who would always judge her kindly, it was she. Though probably too kindly sometimes.

“I thought that if you were worrying, perhaps I could worry with you,” Cari said in a rush. She frowned suddenly. “You know…you don’t have to laugh at me.”

She glared out across the water, watched the sun dance and play over the blue-grey waves.The weather was perfect, and everyone was certain it would hold for the rest of the week.

“What?” Essa went completely still and Cari realized her mistake.  “Cari…”

She turned slowly to face her, arms warm and so easy with love that for a moment Cari reeled. So many years they had lost to their mother’s failings, and yet Essa’s arms were ever open, always welcoming. She should tell her, Cari thought angrily, how easy Essa was to love.

“I wasn’t laughing,” Essa murmured, tears sliding down her cheeks like silver rain. Her fist was hard against Cari’s back, it squeezed tighter around the purple tassel.

“Though you could have been a good sister,” she added, standing unflinching as Cari reached up to wipe her cheeks with gentle fingers. “And not called attention to my emotional outburst.”

Her lips twisted, eyes bright with teasing for them both.

“I wouldn’t have,” Cari admitted, leaning up to place a kiss on the cleared tracks of Essa’s tears. She wrapped her arms around her sister’s waist and held on. “If it had ever occurred to me that I would make you cry.”

“It’s your wedding week,” Essa grumbled. She dropped her cheek to Cari’s shoulder and they stood together, Essa’s warmth deeper than the promises of the day. “I’m going to cry every time I look at you.”

She bumped Cari lightly with her fist, fingers already tangling with the artfully cut flannel fringe. “Especially now.”

Cari laughed softly. “Cullen tried to warn me.”

“As if he has room to talk,” Essa snickered. Her chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh and Cari thought for a moment that she had laid down some great burden. “By the Mabari, Care, it’s so good to have you happy and at home.”

Home. Another promise there. A vow holy and fine, offered up in rough hands and with a touch as reverent as starlight. One made already, and waiting to be made again in the presence of their family and friends, and the Divine.

“Dammit, Essa.” 

Cari clutched her harder, until she was certain she could feel their hearts beating together. Trevelyan hearts. As strong as their father’s but larger, louder, and more fearless. The song of sisters.

“Now I’m crying.”

She rubbed her cheek against Essa’s dark hair–a sunkissed, weather-touched version of her own–drew in a shuddering breath tinged with hearth smoke and sunshine and mint.

“Language, Lady Trevelyan,” Essa admonished with a low chuckle. “I could not have picked a better heart for you, you know. Nor for Krem.”

They were both well and truly crying now, the composure Cari rarely lost broken joyfully by such an earnest, happy morning.

“I love you,” she muttered as if the entire notion pained her.

Essa laughed. “I know it. You poor woman.”

She turned her face into Cari’s neck, placed a loud, wet raspberry against her skin. The gesture echoed from their childhood, rare but treasured.

“I love you too,” Essa said quietly. “Always have.”

She straightened suddenly. Her face was blurred but precious through Cari’s tears. Cari touched the scar on Essa’s jaw and she leaned against old fears, pressed warm and solid against old memories.

“Always will,” she said, very seriously. “You know that by now, right?”

“Oh, Essa.” Cari took her cheeks in her hands, held firm against their trembling. “I do.”

She shook her head, blinked until she could see Essa’s face, stalwart and true, freckles bold in tawny sunlight. “Though it’s a miracle to me that you can.”

Their mother had kept such distance between them as children, and then there had been Mathieu and the Circle.

“They’re just ghosts,” Essa said with a shrug, reading her thoughts too easily. “Even now. Even the one who will be standing at father’s side. When she shows up tomorrow her mask in place, all smiles and pride and warmth for the show…she can never stand where we are.  You realize that, don’t you?”

“Mostly.” Cari smiled faintly. “Most days too.”

Essa dashed a tear from Cari’s cheek. “She’s just another minor noble hoping to gain favor from the day.”

“And she will,” Cari admitted bitterly. “The Herald’s mother.”

“The Herald’s mother was a mabari bitch named Greta.” Essa’s grin was brief but ruthless. “And if all of Thedas doesn’t already know it, they will by the time the Ferelden bards are done. I think there’s a new song every month.”

Cari laughed. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m just…”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Essa sighed. “I’ll never be stop being angry that father loves her so much.”

She stepped away, but not too far. The shafts of her boots still brushed the full drape of Cari’s skirts.

“Doesn’t matter though,” Essa said, clipping the tassel onto her necklace before tugging Cari into a side hug once more.  “We have our family.”

Cari slipped her arm around Essa’s waist, fingers tangling with those of her left hand. The anchor pulsed, but Cari held on, cast her fears out onto the gently rolling sea.

“Yes, we do.”


	4. A Bit of a Tease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen x Essa fluff on the morning of Cari and Krem's wedding.

“You’re nervous.”

There was a soft sweet smile on Essa’s face as she smoothed her hands over the deep red wool of his dress jacket. Cullen didn’t bother denying it. His heart was pounding against the palm of her hand. He rarely wore the thing, but this was a special occasion, one as likely to be attended by heads of state as ramshackle mercenaries. The jacket that he had borrowed for their wedding hardly seemed appropriate, and despite Josie’s efforts, he had seen no reason over the past two years to have anything beyond his dress reds made up.

“I just want…” Cullen reached up to rub anxiously at the back of his neck. There was a knot at the base of his skull, one that had abated only a little over the last two days. He had Essa to thank for the reprieves, but she couldn’t spare him further this morning.

“I know.” She wasn’t laughing at him exactly, but the amusement in her grey eyes was impossible to miss.

“I want today to be perfect,” he told her for the tenth time in fewer days.

Essa chuckled. “Today is already perfect.”

She left him then, paced to the nearest window of the impossibly elegant room they were staying in. The curtains hung in heavy layers, russet and royal velvet over yards of gauzy white sheers.  Cullen watched as she pushed them back allowing the first brush of dawn to paint the room in silver-white and blushing gold.

“We’ve hours yet,” she said, turning back to him, tipping her head to one side as she regarded him curiously. Sunrise slid over her bare skin, a cool caress that he couldn’t help envying. “Are you certain you need to be up and about quite so early?”

He wasn’t, but that didn’t mean he could stay in bed any longer. He had woken so long before dawn that he had lost himself in her twice already this morning, but—

“I admit that I’m grateful you’re considering,” Essa interrupted his thoughts with a grin. She closed the distance between them in three quick strides. “But I know you can’t.”

“It isn’t that—“

Essa snorted. “Poor choice of words.” She waggled her brows at him, ran bold fingers down the buttons of her jacket before she stepped close enough to truly tease him. “I know that you won’t.”

Her arms rose, slow and graceful, settled gently around his neck. The anchor was—blessedly—not troubling her as badly as usual. Cullen prayed the reprieve lasted through the day. Sometimes they did, sometimes a morning respite was more than they dared hope for.

“She’ll find you better company anyway,” she teased, pulling him down for a lazy kiss. Her lips moved over his without demand and he kissed her back, exulting in quiet, perpetual want. “She threatened to strangle me with her veil yesterday.”

Cullen laughed softly against her lips. “Only because you offered to dye it grey for her.”  He kissed her again, a light drop to her lips, then the freckles that rioted across the crooked bridge of her nose. Cari’s foresight was the only reason a peeling sunburn wasn’t currently adding insult to injury. “You’re a terrible bridesmaid.”

Essa stretched up, body pressing hard and tempting against his as she kissed him roughly for the insult.

“And that, my love, is why she picked you as her maid of honor.”

She stepped back quickly, spun him smartly toward the door and patted him on the ass. “Have fun.”

Cullen groaned. “You’re going back to bed aren’t you?”

“I might be.” She wiggled at him. He didn’t have to be looking to know. “It’ll give you something to think about while Cari’s fretting over the centerpieces or whatever it is this morning.”


	5. Fixed Points

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first winter after Cari and Krem's wedding. The couple is settling into their home in Smoke's Valley and celebrating the third anniversary of their first new year's kiss.

Some nights glittered more holy than others, and for Cari the Eve of First Day would always be a night of magic and wonder. She could feel it in the air, taste it in every breath of shocking cold that spilled down from the jagged peaks of the Frostback Mountains. Clifton would always hold a special place in her heart, Skyhold too, but she was excited to be spending the season in Smoke’s Valley, tucked in among family and friends, sharing her first home with her new husband.

The cottage had been a wedding gift from Essa and the Iron Bull. Smoke’s Valley had been growing steadily since the moment Essa secured the holding; neither Cari nor Krem had thought much the year before of the cozy two story house that was built alongside the valley’s chapel. The stone walls, wood floors, and thatched roof were no different than any other home in the sprawling village. There were more windows, but not nearly enough to set it apart. Essa and Cullen’s cottage—nestled farthest from the rest—was more window than wall.

They had never suspected such a wonderful gift was for them.

Cari had cried when Essa handed her the key to lock she doubted they would ever use. She and Krem—and Sera and the Chargers—had then spent the next months furnishing and decorating the first home she had ever called her own. Their own. Such a miracle in those sweet words and Krem had known it, holding her hand in his, eyes bright with a smile too large for his face.

“It’s really ours,” he had murmured, fingers tight with glad disbelief.

“It is.”

There wasn’t room enough for everyone, but there was a touch from each of them.  Plaidweave curtains and a honey crock in the kitchen from Sera. A bookshelf, sturdy but not quite level when it wasn’t anchored with a few dozen books, from Cullen and Essa. Neither would admit it, but Cari knew they’d built it together with not nearly enough of Thom’s help.The linen chest—and their bed now that it winter was fast upon them—was layered with so many gifts. Soft knitted neutrals from Ola, Cullen, and Nadie, a purple satin quilt that Cari didn’t want to even try to guess the cost of. The Chargers had brought it back from a trip to Denerim, given it to a blushing Krem amid bawdy recommendations for its use until Cari stepped into the room.

_“It’s royal,” Skinner said shortly, silencing laughter and catcalls with admirable hostility. She lifted her sharp chin, glared down her nose as if the gift didn’t matter. As if it were just another haul. “Couldn’t see ruining it with any of this lot. Thought it might suit you and your lady. That’s all.”_

That wasn’t all. Cari had taken one look at Krem and known that would never be all. Maker’s breath, the man was loved, and she knew too well the perpetual surprise at facing that miracle time and again.

_“Thank you, Skinner.” Cari brushed her husband’s hand as she passed, eyes narrowed on his friend, threat evident enough that the Chargers stomped and whistled and laughed as she swept a protesting Skinner into a hug as much for herself as for Krem.”We will treasure it always.”_

The quilt was spread across their bed now, along with a half dozen colorful throw pillows that Cari suspected Sera and Dagna planted, but she couldn’t be sure. They changed at random, silks from Orlais, needlepoint from the Marches. Sometimes Cari found them in different rooms of the house, a pillow and blanket on the window seat in the library the only proof that Sera had spent the night.

Eight short months, and already the valley was home.

At winter’s height, Smoke’s Valley was resplendent, bedecked as finely as any Orlesian ballroom in celebration of the coming year. A blanket of fresh snow glowed cool and white and smooth as satin beneath the steadfast light of the moons. The sky was a crush of velvet, a deep, endless, blue-black yawning wide and infinite above the jagged ridges of the mountains. The night was so filled with stars that Cari could not hope to hold them all within her gaze, fire scattered brightly and finer than any chandelier the Golden City itself might boast.

Cari still couldn’t quite believe that this was her life. That just three and a half years after leaving everything she had ever known behind, she was standing in a valley in the Frostback Mountains, counting wishes and blessings. The stars shimmered and she blinked away happy tears, gaze searching for one of so many fixed points in the firmament. Equinor reared in the west. The stallion would always remind her of Essa, proud and fierce, just a bit feral, but her sister had a heart like a mabari, steadfast and loyal, and miracle of miracles, she was not the only heart to have chosen Cari’s.

“Stargazing, Lady Trevelyan?”

The soft crunch of Krem’s boots in the snow had long announced him. Cari didn’t turn, didn’t startle when his arms came around her, hands strong and sure at her waist, his chin a precious weight on her shoulder.

“It’s Aclassi now,” Cari teased gently, knowing that the way her lips lingered on their name would always cause his heart to stumble. It was the same with her, every time he called her his wife.

“So it is.”

Krem chuckled softly, but she heard the words unspoken. There had been a time when he considered leaving his name behind, but he carried that much for his father, and now she carried it with him.

“I missed you.”

Cari turned her cheek to his, pressed cold skin to blissfully warm. He was still flushed from drink and dancing, seemed to hold the laughter and music from the tavern trapped within his skin.

“You wandered farther than I thought,” he said, rubbing brisk hands over her arms.

Midnight was approaching, and Cari’s heart had called her back to three years before, her feet nearly skipping to the chapel. In the lee of the high, stone walls, the night was near silent, boisterous song a muted lure from the other side of the village.

“I had hoped for a few moments alone.” She could feel his heart pounding through the layers of their clothes. “I’m not opposed to kissing you in front of the entire tavern but…”

She let the words fall soft against the night. Krem pressed a smiling kiss to the side of her neck, the cold air a sharp bite as he pulled away.

“Whose coat are you wearing?” he asked suddenly.

The wool was soft but the cut was far too big for her, cuffs hanging down to the tips of her fingers, the boxy hem of the great coat stopping well past her knees and completely at odds with the elegant lines of her velvet gown. She had dressed with care for the night, short sleeves for the warmth of the tavern, a long, graceful coat for when she danced with her husband beneath the stars.

“Cullen’s.” She couldn’t help laughing; the best laid plans and all. “I think Sera stole mine, she was enamored with the ribbons and the roses. Cullen was kind enough to offer his. Essa assured me that she wouldn’t let him catch cold.”

“She won’t.” Krem laughed. “The tavern is so full they’ve opened half the windows just to let some cool air in, and Cullen had his arms quite full of Her Worship when I left.”

“I don’t think she was expecting so many of the Chargers to winter here this year.” Cari smiled. “She’s going to be exhausted.”

Essa loved them and Cari knew she wouldn’t pass on having them all gathered for anything, but the energy it took from her to be so surrounded by people was enormous. Cari didn’t have it nearly so bad, but she sympathized.

“She will,” Krem agreed, breath fogging the air before them. “She’ll hide in the barn in a grump for a week if she doesn’t go with Cullen back to Skyhold.”

“She might at that,” Cari mused, taking his hands and toying with the fingertips of his heavy gloves. There were scars beneath the leather, calluses from years of weapons and work. She brought his hands to her lips. “Master Dennet runs a quieter stable than Ser Michel.”

“Yes, he does.” Krem’s laughter was a rumble at her back. “To Michel’s envy I believe.”

He stroked her cheek with his knuckles, a whisper of touch before he wrapped his arms around her waist again and pulled her back more snuggly against his chest. Cari leaned into him, fingers lacing with his from treasured habit. They sighed together in homecoming.

“I love you so much.” She squeezed his hands with hers, let to go run her palms over the solid strength of his forearms. Her velvet gloves gleamed darkly against the white of his shirt. Cari blinked. “Where is your coat?!”

Maker’s breath, he must have been freezing! Cari rubbed clumsily at his arms, as if she were Essa to warm with a simple touch.

“Krem!” She tried to pull away but he held fast.

“I thought you had it.”

“No.” Cari shook her head. “I couldn’t find it either.”

She pushed at his arms with hers, and amidst protests turned in his arms, awkwardly shrugging out of her borrowed coat.

“It isn’t that cold.”

He was laughing at her, breath a contradicting puff of white between them. She was of a mind to argue with him—her arms were already shivering with gooseflesh—but she knew that he would only insist she put the coat back on.

“Your Tevene blood is thinner than mine,” she reminded him pertly. Cari held up the coat, tapped the toe of his boot with hers in gentle remonstrance. “And I will get Dorian to back me up on that if I must.”

She shook the coat at him in coaxing. “There’s room enough for both of us.”

“Anything to save me a lecture from Dorian.”

Krem smiled as she swept the coat around his shoulders, and Cari couldn’t—didn’t, no longer had to—resist brushing a kiss to that ascending curve as she smoothed the wool in place. She wondered if she would ever fully believe that she had found herself so wholly beloved by another. That he was just as much hers as she was his and as happy in the finding.

“You don’t think she and Dagna are pretending to be us again do you?” Krem asked on a longsuffering sigh.

“Maybe.” Cari left the buttons of the coat undone; Krem held open the front for her to step in close to him. “It is our anniversary, after all.”

The great coat wouldn’t button behind her, but he held the edges as close together as they would go, trapping the warmth of them in the heavy drape of wool.

“It is.” His breath was warm on her lips. Cari stood flush against him, wrapping both arms around his narrow waist. “And I must admit I rather enjoyed Sera’s theatrical reenactment last year.”

The first year had been impromptu–little more than Sera and a hastily recruited Dagna wearing Cari’s hat and Krem’s coat and making moon eyes and kissy faces at one another across a tavern table—but the following year Sera’d had time to plan. There had been costume changes and at least two acts. Cari wasn’t quite sure about the third.

“I knew it.” She laughed softly. “I saw your face during the sword fight.”

“I’ll deny it.”

His hands settled on her hips, eyes shining dark with merriment. Cari placed a slow kiss on his cheek, did it again just for the marvel of such easy and welcomed affection. There was a softness in his eyes, a weight of understanding, and she knew that they would never be the kind to take what they had found together for granted.

“So will I,” Cari teased. “For all the good it will do. I believe she was protecting our privacy that first year.”

Corypheus had been defeated that summer and most of the Inquisition had celebrated the new year at Skyhold. Cari and Krem had marked the more personal occasion with dancing and small gifts, and Sera had surprised them with cookies. Once Essa and Bull realized what the day meant to Cari and Krem, the news and cheer had spread. The festivities had brought a bit more attention than either of them had expected, well-wishes pouring through the keep, improvised but earnest gifts and a stolen cake. The tale of their romance’s genesis had been begged for, nigh demanded. Cari had been reluctant to give something so private to the masses. Even the masses she loved.

Sera had come to their rescue.

“I know that we will always share those moments with Sera,” Krem said, nuzzling her jaw and drawing her back from thoughts that she knew he shared. “But…”

He shook his head.

“But they still feel like ours,” she finished for him. “Just ours.”

And even if there were words to truly capture those heart-stopping breaths, well they were not to be shared with everyone.

“They all seem content enough with Sera’s tales.”

“They do.” Krem grinned. “I wonder how much they actually believe.”

“Delrin has only fed the story of your romantic duel for my affections.” Cari giggled, snuggling close as the night fell deeper around them, the distant music hushed over acres of snow and the stone walls of the chapel. “Briony seems particularly fond of the part where she swept in and saved his heart from wasting over me.”

He nodded, chin bumping against her hair. “I like that one too. Chief’s hoping Varric will turn it into a book.”

Cari laughed, the sound so sudden and loud that she clapped one hand over her mouth.

“He wouldn’t!” she exclaimed between her fingers.

She couldn’t imagine it, a book based on Sera’s version of their first declarations.

“He would,” Krem assured her, eyes dancing. “ _The Lady and the Mercenary_ is Sera’s suggested title.”

“Oh!” Cari covered her face with one hand, cheeks hot against chilled air. “She’ll no doubt charge him royalties if he uses it.”

“We can hope.” He reached up, gently pried her fingers from her eyes. “I’m going to charge her for half of whatever she makes off of us.”

“No!” Her cheeks were tight from cold and laughter. “I must write to the Divine immediately.”

“And why is that?”

Krem spun them in a jolly circle, snow kicking up around their feet. Cari clung to his shoulders, head tossed back, laughter bouncing toward the diamond-bright stars.

“This seems the exact sort of issue to which she would want to lend her support,” she managed, giggling.

“It does, doesn’t it?” He brought them out of their reckless spin, and Cari stood within the circle of his arms, palm pressed to the steady, rapid beat of his heart.

“I love you, Carilyna Aclassi.”

He looked so serious all of a sudden that Cari’s heart flipped over, began a mad beat against her ribs.

“I love you,” she whispered.

His smile was quick, lighter than the solemnity of the moment and so perfectly them that she ached with joy.

“I have a gift for you.”

Krem shifted her in his arms so that he could reach the pocket of his heavy suede vest. His lack of armor was still a most precious honor, one that neither Cari nor their family and friends accepted lightly.

“And I for you.”

She stepped back just enough to get her arms up between them.  She had worn the heavy steel chain all night, kept his gift hidden beneath the high collar of her gown.

“I knew not to leave it in my coat pocket.”

The jest was born of nerves and she shook her head at the curious arch of his brows.

“I should have…” Cari caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I should have given this to you where there was more light.”

He wouldn’t be able to see the carefully rendered portrait inside the plain, round locket, at least not very well. Maybe that was for the best.

“There’s light enough.”

Krem lifted his chin to where the moons hung, silver and gold luminescence filled to nearly bursting. He let whatever he had for her slip back into his pocket and took off his gloves with quick, brusque motions. The locket dangled, chain trembling and glittering with Cari’s nerves, above his open palm.

“Just…I had to paint it from memory…and not even mine. I mean, I remember you, but it’s not really possible to remember what you look like yourself so Essa had to help me and well…she has always thought—“

She was babbling like a fool and, Andraste, preserve her, he was smiling at her as if she were the most beautiful fool he had ever seen.

“Cari.”

“What?” she asked a touch sharply.

“May I have my present?”

She dropped the locket into his hand, paced away before he could stop her, boots sinking deep into freezing snow. She couldn’t watch as he undid the latch, couldn’t bring herself to meet as eyes when he called her name again. Cari knew what he saw. She had spent hours on the miniature painting, watercolors cast like dreams across the tiny canvas, the russet and amethyst of their wedding clothes, the sky blue above the distant sea. She had captured his smile, and even writ so small the love in his eyes and hands was unmistakable. Essa had hounded her nearly to death on the details of her own face, and half the time she sounded like Cole. _Soften the jawline here, Care. Gentle around the eyes. And warm. You have a smile like home when you dance with him._

“Cari.”

“What?” That sharpness again. A fear of rejection that maybe she would never truly be free of, but that he never seemed to mind facing down. Cari forced her gaze from the snow at her feet, met his eyes with

“Except for you, this is the most beautiful gift I have received.”

“I wanted you to have something of us to take with you when you’re on the road.” 

She pushed the words past a lump in her throat, was relieved when they sounded practical, polished. Not at all like she might be crying.

Krem smiled gently. “I wanted you to have something of us here,” he replied quietly.

He held the locket in one hand, but in his other was a single lavender rose.

“It took some doing, but I found an herbalist in Jader who promised me it’ll grow roots if we put it in a vase of water in a sunny window.”

He had told her once that she reminded him of those roses, lavender deep and silvered, thorns fewer but sharp. Now he shrugged, ducking his head as if embarrassed at the display of sentiment. Cari took three quick steps back toward him.

“She said you should be able to get four or five plants off of the cutting,” he continued, cheeks dark in the moonlight. Cari took the locket from his hand and slipped the chain over his head without asking. “We can plant it in the garden…for our wedding anniversary this spring.”

He swallowed hard and added, “If you want to.”

Cari brushed careful fingers over the rosebud. “I very much want to.”

Krem kissed her then, lips moving sure and steady on hers, sweet with cider.

“Joyous First Day, my wife.”

The wish surprised her.

“We’ve hours yet,” Cari laughed as Krem kissed her again, slower this time.

“We do.” He pulled away with a grin, one hand lingering at her waist, the other gently holding the rose between their clasped fingers. “But we both know that when midnight closes in Sera is going to come ring the chapel bells above our heads and I wanted at least one First Day kiss without an audience.”

“At least one.” Cari brushed her lips to his, soft and filled with a dozen promises. “Joyous First Day, my husband.”

She touched her forehead to his and they stood together in the solitude, breathing deeply of each other and of winter’s cold stillness. They had been married just that spring, but if she were being honest, as wonderful as that day had been she did not feel that they were any more than they had ever been. How could they be? She had given everything she was to him in Clifton more than two years before, with the chantry walls echoing the toll of midnight and Sera crowing in the new year.

“Thank you for the roses,” she murmured, for the single rose in their hands was a promise of more.

“Thank you for the dances,” Krem replied, stepping them easily into a waltz. He spun them over a patch of snow, stole a kiss when Cari had to scramble for footing. “For this one and all the ones to come.”


	6. Stanton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slothquisitor who asked for Cari and Krem after Inquisition, endearments or slow dancing (I opted for both).
> 
>  
> 
> This occurs about twelve years after Inquisition.

The morning was quiet and new. Dawn pearled soft with dew through the open windows, stirred lazily through pale, linen curtains, slanted across the hardwood floor to tease the edge of a rag rug, now more rag than rug. Nadie had made her a new one—a half dozen new ones over the years—but Cari still kept that one by their bed, and stood each morning on the foundation of so much love before she began her day. The morning was soft, a yearning of potential just over the mountains. Soon the valley would fill with noise, but for now, there was only the distant sound of the falls and the graceful ballad Cari was humming.

“Good morning.” She knew he was awake, but he still called to her, if for nothing else but to watch her turn back toward the bed, a smile lighting her face.

“Good morning,” Cari said, eyes bright and full of love, as if they had not woken together so many times before. “Essa’s already at the stables,” she warned him. “I heard Cacique shouting to her.”

Essa had returned for planting then. Krem chuckled. Smoke’s Valley came alive when she was in residence. The quietude of the morning would soon be lost completely, forgotten until the next.

If they were lucky anyway. The mornings weren’t always quiet. Sometimes little feet thundered down the hall before Krem was fully awake. Less and less often now that Stanton had convinced Gabby she was too old to run to mother and father for every little thing, but sometimes she forgot, woke them with squeals and kisses and hair that smelled like starshine.

“What are you thinking about?” Cari asked, dragging her brush slowly through long waving tresses. There was silver amid the sun streaks, and she pretended to mind the latter much less than the former.

He knew she treasured both. “Everything,” he smiled.

Life was more than he had dared dreamed and Krem didn’t know if he would ever stop marveling at it. A home, a family. The Chargers always, but he also had his own. Something just for him, and she had built it with him, tenacious in her grace.

“Ten years,” he said.

Cari grinned, paused in her ministrations to wipe a tear from her eye.

“I know,” she sighed. “I can hardly believe it.”

She shook her head. “I think Cullen is going to give him Folly’s colt.” She shook her head. “He really does spoil them.”

Krem laughed. “Your fault entirely.”

He slipped out bed, padded quietly across the room to stand beside her. Cari tipped her head up to meet his kiss, a gentle play as familiar and perfect as walking home after being on the road. She wrapped both arms around his waist, pressed her cheek against the worn cotton of his pajama shirt.

“I suppose it is. I can’t say I regret it.”

Stanton had come to them the first winter after they wed. A babe left in a basket on the doorstep of the cottage Essa had built for them after she disbanded the Inquisition the first time. They hadn’t stayed often in the valley then. Cari had spent most of the year between Clifton and Skyhold, Krem beside her more months than not. Still, the chantry at Clifton had a small but proper foundling house, and everyone knew it. There had been something of a scandal that Cari was taking in any in need and not just humans, raising them in the shadow of a military installation.

She had been rather proud, not that she would admit it. Krem was probably the least surprised to find a child left for them, and certainly not as shocked as Cullen when Cari named the baby after him. Krem grinned.  The man had gone as pale as a new father when Cari handed him Stanton.

_“I’m an uncle.”_

_“You’re already an uncle,” Essa laughed._

_“But this one...” Cullen had held the child out for Essa to rub dirt across his cheek. “This one is Cari’s.”_

“They’ve made good god parents,” she mused, rubbing her cheek against his stomach in that absent way she had. “Do you think we can ship him to Honnleath when he becomes a recalcitrant adolescent?”

Krem laughed. “Your sister would kill us. She gets little enough quiet as is with Fin’s growing brood just down the way.”

Cari placed her brush down on the vanity table. “Maker, Krem, how are we all parents?”

“Not all of us,” Krem said, teasing her just as he had the day they decided to keep Stanton as their own. “You’re too vibrant and beautiful to be someone’s mother.”

Cari’s smirk was faint, eyes dancing merrily through the silver light.

“And you’re far too handsome and freespirited to be someone’s father.” She gave the next line back to him, lifted her face for the kiss she knew he waited to brush over her forehead. “But we are. Maker’s breath, Krem. We are.” She wiped another tear from her cheek. “Stanton’s ten years old today.”

There was wonder in her voice, it shone quietly in her face, something fine and precious and glad gleaming in the corners of her eyes.

“He is. And there will be food and dancing tonight, and he and his sister will likely be grumpy from not enough sleep and too much sugar tomorrow.” Krem stepped back, held out one hand to her. “My lady?”

“My love.” Her eyes crinkled, smile tugging her lips up as she slowly slipped her hand in his.

Krem lifted her to her feet, pulled her close.

“What are you doing?” she whispered as he picked up the tune she had dropped earlier.

“Dancing,” he said, shifting them lightly from one foot to the other.

“But there’s no music.”

Krem kissed her, a quick peck to her thoughtfully pursed lips. “You are my music.”


End file.
